McKiver Returns To Big Ten Championships This Week After Showing Impressive 400-800 Range

By David Woods for DyeStat

Photos courtesy University of Iowa

Jenoah McKiver would run, but always with a football tucked under his arm. He was a dual-threat quarterback and do-it-all athlete who was all-conference in basketball. He plays golf.

Run? Just to run? That was for his brother, Jevon.

Then the track coach at T.W. Andrews High in High Point, N.C., explained to McKiver college recruiters had no interest in slow quarterbacks. The coach, Eric Berry, also a football coach, encouraged him to come out for the team.

“And three days later, he was out on the track practicing,” Berry said. “The rest of it was history, he progressed so fast. He wants to be the best at everything he does.”

By one measurement, McKiver (pronounced muh-KEE-ver) has been the best collegian ever.

In February’s Big Ten indoor meet at Geneva, Ohio, the Iowa junior was timed in 1:14.27 for 600 meters. The oversized nature of the 300-meter oval meant the time was ineligible for a collegiate record. But only one man – Donovan Brazier, 1:13.77 in 2019 and 1:13.97 in 2022 – has ever run faster indoors.

“That’s one of the most impressive things I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot in track and field,” said Iowa coach Joey Woody, a 1997 NCAA champion in the 400 hurdles and 2003 world silver medalist.

The 1:14.27 won’t be on any all-time list. McKiver was disqualified for stepping on a lane line.

It did not count. It did matter. For someone set back twice by a torn hamstring, it was affirmation he was back on track.

“I didn’t want to dwell on it,” McKiver said. “I used that as fuel to come back for outdoors. ‘If I can do it once, I can do it again.’ That was my mind-set.”

It is a mind-set influencing him to think beyond the 400 meters at the outdoor Big Ten Championships, which begin a three-day run Friday at Bloomington, Ind.

Not thinking just to NCAA Championships, but to nationals and worlds. And yes, the Paris Olympics.

“I definitely think he is a guy who can be in that conversation,” Woody said.

Learning To Run The 400

Considering McKiver’s introduction to the 400 meters, his track career nearly ended before it began.

It was his sophomore year, and Andrews needed a leg on the 4x400 relay at the Class 2A state meet. Berry induced McKiver to run it.

“After that, I did not want to run. I did not know the pain,” McKiver recalled. “I was like, ‘No, never again.’“

Berry said McKiver ran awkwardly and didn’t know what he was doing.  But McKiver isn’t content to do things. He studies. He learns.

The next year, in his first full season, he became state champion at 200 and 400. He extended the season into summer, matched up in an AAU regional against Khaleb McRae, who became a national junior college champion, and Randolph Ross Jr., a future NCAA champion. McKiver finished third. Berry had seen what he wanted to see, though.

“The fact he was with them until the last 40 meters told me he was going to be special,” the coach said.

There was one issue. McKiver coasted to the finish. Berry forbids that. So, the coach took the sprinter aside afterward.

“I ripped him a new one,” Berry said. “He gave me that look that he was disappointed that I was disappointed in him. Because he had never heard me talk like that.”

If you always do your best, the coach told him, you will never have regrets. The incident brought coach and athlete closer.

In the 2019 AAU Junior Olympics at Greensboro, N.C., McKiver dropped his PB to 47.24 and finished second. (McRae and Ross weren’t there.)

Then it was back to football. In 11 games as a senior, he completed 50 percent of his passes for 1,203 yards and 10 touchdowns, and rushed for 443 yards (7.6 average) with four TDs.

Ultimately, coach and athlete reasoned McKiver could go farther in track than in football.

Iowa recognized the potential, even though McKiver lived in distant North Carolina, his times were modest by national standards and there was no 2020 outdoor season because of the pandemic. Here was a prospect who basically had one track season.

“We recruit everywhere. We’re all over the map,” Woody said.

The coach liked McKiver’s 6-foot-3 frame, long stride and upside.

Coincidentally, Berry favored Iowa, too, because of his middle school coach in Youngstown, Ohio. The coach was Dennis Mosley, a former Ohio sprint champion who became a 1979 Big Ten rushing leader for Iowa football. Mosley had said Iowa City is a supportive college town and the university nurtured him.

McKiver loved his campus visit. He became a Hawkeye.

It took him nearly three years to improve more than a few tenths on his PB. Then he was a revelation in 2022.

He lowered his time to 45.39 indoors, won a Big Ten title in the 600 and finished second (behind Ross) in indoor NCAAs. After he opened outdoors in 44.74 at Tucson, Ariz. – plus a 43.9 split in the 4x400 relay – he was ready to break out.

Instead, he broke down. A week later, running a 200 at the Mt. SAC Relays, he “tried to shift gears too aggressively” on the curve, Woody said. McKiver tore his hamstring. His season was over.

Rehab was so encouraging he contemplated getting ready for the USATF Championships in a bid to make the world team. One more month, he said, and he might have been ready. This year, he is not aiming to peak in June.

“We want our season to end in August,” he said.

Setting A Higher Standard

Woody has noticed changes in McKiver. The sprinter pays more attention to diet and sleep, comes into the track facility on his own on Sundays.

McKiver said he was in the training room every day and never abandoned hope. He disclosed he reinjured the hamstring in January, so the Big Ten indoor meet was his first competition in six weeks.

It is a fragile balance. Woody said McKiver has natural endurance and can handle volume in workouts. But he races sparingly.

“It’s keeping him healthy from week to week,” Woody said. “Making sure we don’t overcook him.”

McKiver opened outdoors at the Florida Relays with an 800 in 1:51.40, but that was with a first 200 of 22.8. With a controlled pace, Woody said, the sprinter could have approached 1:48.

In McKiver’s two outdoor 400s, he clocked 45.33 at Waco, Texas, on April 22 and 45.25 at Tucson on April 29.. He is No. 9 on the NCAA performance list. But only one collegian – Tennessee’s Emmanuel Bynum, 44.67 – has ever run faster than McKiver’s 44.74 from 13 months ago.

“He believes he can beat anyone in the field,” Woody said.

McKiver, who recently turned 21, is young in the sport. Only in 2019 has a season ever lasted past May.

“Never sell yourself short. I’m like, ‘What’s next?’ “ McKiver said. “I always set myself a higher standard. If I want to make a world team, what comes with it?”

More speed development, according to Woody. No one is stronger over the closing 100. Running 600s was “a big step,” McKiver said, making a 400 feel like a 300.

If he is, effectively, the second-fastest ever in an indoor 600, he aims to manifest that soon. If he becomes a dual threat again, it might be at 400 and 800 meters.

Contact David Woods at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter: @DavidWoods007.